"Yes!" said James in a gasping voice.
"Margaret was much worse after Baldwin wrote, and the child--a girl--was born that afternoon. The child--"
"Is dead?" James tore his coat open as he asked the question, as if choking.
"No, my dear fellow"--his friend took his arm firmly within his own--"the poor child is alive, but Margaret is gone."
[CHAPTER XI.]
AFTER A YEAR.
Lady Davyntry to James Dugdale.
"The Deane, March 17, 18--.
"MY DEAR MR. DUGDALE,--Your last letter, imposing upon me the task of advising my brother, in the sense of the conclusions arrived at by yourself and Mr. Meredith, gave me a great deal to think about. I could not answer it fully before, and I am sure the result which I have now to state to you will not, in reality, be displeasing to you, but I cannot uphold its soundness of wisdom, in a worldly sense, even to my own judgment--though it carries with it all my sympathies; and I am confident Mr. Meredith will entirely disapprove of it.
"I was obliged to be careful in selecting an opportunity for entering upon the discussion prescribed by your letter with Fitzwilliam. Since his great affliction fell upon him, he is not so gentle, so easy of access, as he used to be; and though he will sometimes talk freely to me of the past, the occasions must be of his own choosing. Hence the delay. I took the best means, as I thought, of making him understand the gravity and earnestness of the matter it was necessary he should consider--I read your letter to him. The mere hearing of it distressed him very much. He said, what I also felt, that he had not thought it could be possible to make him feel the loss of Margaret more deeply, but that the statement of his present position, so clear, so true, so indisputable, has made him feel it. He listened while I read the letter again, at his request, and then left me suddenly, saying he would tell me what to answer as soon as he could.